Why I Read
I’ve been looking at the box of books on my “to read” list. I buy books, one or even two or three at a time. One book leads to another and another. This has been the story of my life for many years. I have subjects of interest that I’ve revisited over and over, like returning to a deep well of cool water in the afternoon on a sultry summer’s day. I remember such a well on my grand parents farm in North Carolina. As a kid, I’d lower the bucket on a chain bit by bit until it reached the surface. Then I’d slowly raise a bucket-full. A dipper always remained in the bucket for drinking use. I remember in my late 60’s the delicious taste of that good water.
A new book on a topic of enduring interest is like that for me. It’s like drinking from that metal dipper after coming from the barn on a hot summer afternoon.
Here are some of the books that await my pleasure in the coming months of this year.
- The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami (which I am now reading)
- You Must Change Your Life, The story of Ranier Maria Rilke and Auguste Rodin by Rachel Corbett
- Trouble in Paradise, From the End of History to the End of Capitalism by Slavoj Zizek
- The Clam Lake Papers: A Winter in the North Woods by Edward Lueders
- The Tank War: The Men, the Machines, The Long Road to Victory by Mark Urban
- Sorrow’s Ashes by Cheryl Stevens Clark and John Reed Clark
- A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace
- Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation by Kate Bornstein and S. Bear Bergman
- Strange Glory, The Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer by Charles Marsh
- The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
- Pythagoras by Kitty Ferguson
- A Disease in the Public Mind: A New understanding of Why We Fought the Civil War by Thomas Fleming
- The Hatred of Poetry by Ben Lerner
- The Many faces of Christ: The Thousand Year Story of the Survival and Influence of the Lost Gospels by Philip Jenkins
And there you have it. The well is deep. As the years have clicked by my curiosity has gown in these areas of interest and I continue to be refreshed by another drink from the dipper.
What do you have in your well?
Have a drink. ..Aahh…
2 thoughts on “Why I Read”
May I suggest one more based on your list as it stands. Steinbeck wrote a little known follow up to Grapes of Wrath titled, In Dubious Battle. For whatever reason this book is rarely discussed but has at least as much social tooth as its predecessor. Just a thought for somewhere down the road.
Thank you! I depend upon recommendations. One more dipper full.